


Notorious Wrong

by Ladybug_21



Category: SHAKESPEARE William - Works, Twelfth Night (National Theatre 2017), Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: F/F, Servants, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 13:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16682380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: Some brief thoughts that might have gone through Olivia and Malvolia's minds as they part at the end ofTwelfth Night.  Based on the performances of Phoebe Fox and Tamsin Greig in the 2017 National Theatre production.





	Notorious Wrong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chainofclovers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/gifts).



> The original request:
> 
> "I’ll never be over Tamsin Greig’s incredible performance as Malvolia. In watching the final scenes of the play, I’m struck by the perceived empathy on the part of Olivia, and by the utterly sane, utterly self-possessed defiance on the part of Malvolia. What’s going on in their minds? Where is there understanding, and where does confusion persist? In a comedy, does anybody win?"
> 
> In her Dear Yuletide Author letter, chainofclovers very helpfully pointed me towards [this excellent analysis of Malvolia](http://ellydash.tumblr.com/post/174003126233/i-am-no-more-mad-than-you-are-malvolia-twelfth), which I found extremely helpful for the purposes of writing this fic. I owe additional thanks to [april_rainer (tom_bedlam)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tom_bedlam/pseuds/april_rainer) for sending me the link to [another Tumblr post on servants and emotion](http://quietblogoflurk.tumblr.com/post/175788705120/other-people-have-said-it-before-and-more), which certainly impacted how I thought about Olivia's perceptions of Malvolia.
> 
> And, by the way, thank you so, so much for introducing me to this exquisite production, chainofclovers! I had never heard of it before I got your Yuletide requests, and it is by far the most compelling _Twelfth Night_ that I've ever watched. In all honesty, I've spent much of my life wondering why people make such a fuss over _Twelfth Night_ , which has never been among my top Shakespeare plays, so the fact that I am now totally addicted to this particular production speaks volumes in and of itself. Besides being just an incredibly fun show, with some absolutely gorgeous musical arrangements, I came away with profoundly different perspectives on characters that I thought I understood well, and that was a truly rewarding experience. I am invariably annoyed by the malicious shenanigans of Sir Toby Belch & Co. throughout this play, but I have _never_ been so utterly heartbroken at the end of a _Twelfth Night_ as after watching this production, and I will join you whole-heartedly in being forever obsessed with Tamsin Greig's inspired performance.

_I am as mad as she,_  
_If sad and merry madness equal be._

— Olivia (Act III, Scene 4)

* * *

The guilt does not crash down upon her in one overwhelming wave.  Perhaps it's because she has already been toppled once within the past few minutes by the discomfiting realisation that she has married a man whom she does not know at all; married him, moreover,  _thinking_ that he was a disguised woman about whom she knew equally little.  Already disoriented, adrift, tempest-tossed, the addition of shame instead seeps in slowly; each passing word and gesture heightens her anguish like the tide rising inch by inch with each successive ebb and flow.

The most ironic part of it all is that this current upheaval concerns Malvolia — Malvolia, who has been such a constant in her life.  That such a reliable basis of support might be wrenched from her at a moment like this is almost unbearable.  Before, when Cesario was the only thing making Olivia's head spin and her stomach whirl, Malvolia's absurd changed manner was altogether rather _inconvenient_ , inexplicably unleashed as Malvolia was in her cross-gartered stockings and most uncharacteristic yellow ensemble, at a moment when Olivia craved melancholy.  Now, though, when every certainty that Olivia attempts to grasp and hold slips through her fingers like the seawater that surrounds Illyria, Malvolia's transformation is just one more physical indicator of how little stability remains in Olivia's life.

And how ashamed she feels, to have added to Malvolia's misery!  How could she, Olivia, have been so distracted by her own vanity, so absorbed by her own convictions that she could seduce Cesario, that she would irritably cast aside Malvolia's own attempts at seduction?  How could she have laughed at Malvolia for chasing blindly and whole-heartedly after a fantasy of a romance, when in the end, that was all that she, Olivia, had been doing all along?

For Olivia does care deeply for Malvolia.  It's not the kind of care that the poets would refer to as love, but it is a form of the same emotion, nonetheless.  Poetic love is something impulsive and reckless, the sort of breathless ride that landed Olivia in this situation in the first place (married not to her adored Cesario, but to an unknown man who seems to pick violent fights with everyone he meets in Illyria and consorts with at least one notorious pirate).  The love that Olivia feels for Malvolia is something far more subdued, woven, as it is, from years of quiet understanding, of reliance, of complete and utter trust.  Malvolia knows _everything_ about Olivia: the exact amount of milk she takes in her tea; the laughable number of partnerless socks that she keeps in her dresser drawers, ever in hope of the missing partner being found; down to the precise and proper angle of the topiary planters in her garden.  By this point, Olivia cannot imagine existing without Malvolia catering to her every whim, barely a word needing to pass between them.  How could Olivia _not_ love someone who has quietly and confidently held her well-being between two steady hands for so long?

Tears fill her eyes as she blinks down at Maria's words, inscribed in a very credible copy of Olivia's own hand.  Briefly, she considers Maria, and the fact that this sort of manoeuvre seems entirely in character for her saucy maid.  Maria has always been quick with witty commentary and scathing scorn, and Olivia has always thought her less suited to the role of a servant than to that of a soubrette.  Yet Olivia has never thought of Malvolia as anything other than an utterly dependable and entirely emotionless servant, a predictable cog in the machine of Olivia's daily life, no more prone to flights of fancy than would be possible of a motorbike or a stereo system or some other useful item.  Why?  Why should Maria — sassy, smart-mouthed Maria — have seemed more human to Olivia than Malvolia?  Why should she have found it so unthinkable that her humourless and ever-reliable steward might have her own internal life, filled with yearnings and dreams as genuine as Olivia's?

She glances at Malvolia, who is curling into herself slightly, as if self-conscious at being so over-exposed in her bright yellow trappings, a figure more accustomed to the shadowy black of servitude than of the brilliance of public notoriety.  Dark smudges of mascara mark the paths of tears down Malvolia's cheeks, and she shifts her weight slightly from foot to foot, as if desiring nothing more than to flee.  Yet her voice is as strong as ever; her pride demands answers and will not let her depart unsatisfied.  As Olivia hears herself reply, and approaches Malvolia with hesitant steps, she unconsciously reaches out a hand to place on Malvolia's arm.  All she wants is to reassure Malvolia that she _does_ care, even if not exactly in the way that Malvolia needs her to care; to reassure herself that Malvolia, even in this unfamiliar guise, is real and present and tangible.  Malvolia has always been there for Olivia, and Olivia dares to hope that she just might forgive Olivia for her stupidity and blindness and unspeakable betrayal, and choose to remain when Olivia needs her most.

But then Malvolia flinches away, twitching the forged letter back into her possession with a jerk of her arm.  And Olivia retreats, acknowledging that she is being left captive to the brave new world that she has too-hastily created for herself, and that it is a burden that she deserves to bear completely alone.

* * *

_I am no more mad than you are._

— Malvolia (Act IV, Scene 2)

* * *

She is not mad.

She is furious with a humiliation that grips her entire body; wounded like a hart shot for pure sport, and left to drag itself to some obscure hollow to quiver weakly and hope for recovery before the hounds return.  She is shivering from the recent cold and dark in which she has been kept, and burning with passions that she had never imagined were possible.  She has been mocked, taunted, psychologically battered, but she will not relinquish her sanity.  She knows who she is.  And she is not mad.

Her mistress speaks, emphatically — angrily, even — but she turns away, the words ringing in her ears.  She can hear her pulse throbbing in her temples, as surely as she can feel her blood straining against the constricting cross-garters that still bind her legs, and it feels as if her heart will burst at any moment now.  Is it any wonder that she has always shied away from blatant displays of emotion?  Can anyone really question why she has been content to stay in the background for most of her life, letting buffoons like Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek and that smiling, damnèd Feste take front and centre for their ridiculous antics?  For now she feels like a specimen under the glare of a microscope's lens, something odd and alien for the others to point at, and she does not relish the experience.

Fabia is gleefully expounding on all of the wrongs that Lady Olivia's entire household seems to have committed against Malvolia's unsuspecting person, and done for what apparent reason?  None other than that she, Malvolia, had been cross with all of them at one point or another!  Well, what were they to _expect_ , when they blasted music at an obscene decibel level in the wee hours of the morning, or drank to a sloppy excess that she then was forced to clean up, or traipsed about singing and laughing and feasting on cakes and ale when Lady Olivia was still very clearly in mourning over her poor departed brother?  Had she not good  _reason_ to be peeved by their outlandishness?  That's the problem with nobles and fools alike, she reflects bitterly; more often than not, they are never held accountable for tidying the havoc that they wreak.  (After all, why else do servants exist?)

Well.  Enough, then, with the nobles and with the fools.  They insisted that she was mad for daring to place one foot on a stairway that seemed to ascend towards fulfillment, as if a woman of her position in life could never hope to reach such a destination.  But she is sure that she _is_ worthy of the love with which they teased her; that she _is_ deserving of the pride and dignity that they have done their best to wrestle from her, in dragging her back down to the ground.  Feste may sneer at her, but she doesn't need Feste's commentary to tell her where her place is.  She doesn't need any of it.  Perhaps the world will refuse to accept her for who she is — a servant without a master, a steward without a household, a player without a stage, a woman without a man — but if so, then that is a cross that she willingly chooses to bear.  This farcical, illusory promise of fulfillment has stirred within her something powerful and altogether real, something that cannot be suppressed once more beneath dark clothes.  The warmth of hope burst the walls of the hardened and impenetrable kernel in which she was once confined, and now she will not be stuffed back inside.  She is a butterfly that cannot be forced back into a chrysalis.  She will continue to wear yellow.  She will continue to desire whom she pleases, and to dare to be desired in return.  She will continue to believe that she deserves happiness, and she will continue to seek it.  It is not madness to want that much for herself.

Olivia turns slowly to fix Malvolia with one final gaze — pity, shame, need, sympathy, a certain mirrored recognition all playing within her expression.  Malvolia looks back at the face that she unquestioningly served for countless days on end, the face that forced her to admit that she herself was far more than just an efficient set of hands and accurate tallier of accounts, the face for which she had jubilantly splashed through a fountain in the garden, the face that had caused her to don a joyful and flirtatious yellow that she never could have thought herself capable of wearing.  She still loves Olivia, desperately, futilely.  Perhaps she always will.  But Malvolia knows that the time has come for this tragicomedy of errors to end, and that she and Olivia will now embark upon different paths that will likely never again cross.  Her mistress, who has done too little too late, will return to stand silently beside the unknown man she has wed, boxed in by the formulaic ending that she has written for herself.  And she, Olivia's trusted Malvolia, will wander unbound and solitary, in search of a narrative in which she will have the last laugh.

Malvolia shuts her eyes, and when she opens them, the spell is broken.  Slowly, she rejects the final trappings of her servitude in Olivia's household.  No more will she be an expendable servant to an unforgivable mistress.  No more will she linger to be the powerless butt of jokes made by idle shallow things.  Let the spiteful Marias of the world rise through opportunistic marriages to those who will always see them more as objects than as humans; Malvolia is nothing like Maria, has far more self-respect than Maria.  She does not need a Sir Toby — or even an Olivia — to validate who she is and what she is worth.  She has every right to control her own life and destiny, and she will haul herself onwards every painful step of the way, if need be.  She will become more than anyone believes that she can be, and when she does, she will be sure that they all know it, the whole pack of them.

So she turns her back on the malice of a world that has laughed in the face of her truth, and she rallies herself in private, beyond the gaze of those who have inhibited her self-realisation.  Above her, the storm clouds crackle, dark and dangerous and promising a tempest that will blow away all pretenses and all lies, except for those who in its wake choose to conceal their true selves in the borrowed garments of others.  Malvolia, alone and limping in the cross-garters that have caused her such agony, pulls herself to her feet and begins to climb, slowly and hesitantly, but steadily nonetheless.  The nobles and fools down below recede into a uniform mass of black umbrellas; she alone is an illuminated figure of unabashed yellow, rising high above them all, proud and defiant and utterly sane.  Her aching calves push against the constraints that she once thought could win her an ounce of happiness and freedom.  Soon, she will abandon the wretched cross-garters altogether, forget as best as she can who she once was, begin again on terms that are entirely her own.  But for now, she opens her arms to embrace the downpour that will wash the smeared mascara from her cheeks; wriggles her fingers in the rain it raineth every day; and awaits the coming storm.

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, a few hours after publishing this story, I found this brilliant [essay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14731706) on Tamsin Greig's Malvolia, which touches on most of the themes that I've tried to portray here in narrative form (and also adds in a healthy dose of _Hamlet_ -style madness, for good measure!). I _highly_ recommend reading it, and also credit it for leading to the addition of the quotes at the top of the two sections of this fic.


End file.
